


101 care for archangels (when you've pledged your soul to the devil)

by LostMe



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: ALL OUR LOVE, English still isn't my native language, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda?, NetflixRocks, and then disregards everything else, and wishing Tom Ellis a restful night, just happy me celebrating season4, pick up after Angel of San Bernardino
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-05-24 01:00:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14944676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostMe/pseuds/LostMe
Summary: (Look out for recently alterations in chapter 4. I've decided to add a second part and I'm not sure if it was notified)Lucifer's life hasn't been easy. But lately, things had been going just a little too far. Seeing the love of his immortal life marrying a murderer, being betrayed again by his most loyal demon and totally unable to sleep isn't doing him any favors. Would it be too much to ask for someone on his side, without any hidden agenda?Enter Candy Fletcher...(so, I was totally going to write my other fics and let it cook a little bit more, but after seeing that picture of a totally exhausted Tom Ellis face timing  Rachael Harris? I needed to pay some kind of tribute to him. He deserves all of our love and more. This is what I can do for now. So I hope you all like it.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, guys, you know the drill. I'm not a native English speaker, so proceed with care. Corrections are appreciated.  
> I think this one is going to be really short - it's indeed just a little token of gratitude for Netflix and all the hard work of the cast and the fan base. You're awesome!
> 
> So, spoiler alert: this picks up somewhere along The Angel of San Bernardino. The only thing is: Marcus didn't break up with Chloe that night. Instead, he proposed right away and THAT was the scene Lucifer encountered after he learned about Mazikeen's betrayal. Also, for the sake of the story, let's say that neither Amenadiel or Linda are dealing with their forced break up very well and our Devil has no back up for his friends. So... That's it.

For all the truths in the universe, and if he was being honest (which he always was) he knew quite a few of them, the most irrefutable one was that there was a Path to be followed, and those that didn’t follow it were dammed. Humanity was given the choice of free will – and that never stopped to be funny. How can you choose to choose when you don’t have the right to choose yet? The answer is, you don’t, so there was never a choice in the first place. Humanity was born with free will, angels weren’t. Which leads to an unacknowledged truth that has been more and more difficult to ignore in the last months: Lucifer must have been born wrong.

He had blamed his Father for a long, long time. But lately, he has realized that there were no divine choir neither burning bushes (even though that was his idea) interfering into his life. Really, there were only direct consequences for his acts. Well, that and the fact that his omniscient Father has apparently decided to just ignore him, but that was nothing new. But maybe it was never his Father’s fault, in the first place. He must have been born wrong. That kind of explained it all, didn’t it? Why he couldn’t do anything right? Or better yet, why anything he did backfired. He was born wrong, so all his actions were by default corrupted. No wonder everything was doomed to fail. Maybe his Father has been right? Maybe the better way was to have destroyed him when he revealed himself to be defective? Hell was not known for correcting broken things, after all, so why hide such a mistake in Hell?

On that though, his Father did create him. Why would an omnipotent being create a flawed one? Well, humanity was flawed but that was kind of their motto and…

“Lucifer! Either you stay and pay attention or you go home!” Cain, well, _Pierce_ , interrupted his thoughts. Argh! Why should this badly-done-draft of a human be his superior in the department?

Oh, now he remembered. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t actually being paid and could do as he pleased. No… It did matter, because Pierce had the power to prohibit him on cases and then he would never see the Detective again. Not with her engaged to the Lieutenant and…

…

…

…Well, maybe then Pierce could finally die and she would be once again available and he would be allowed on cases again. Oh, look at that, in the end it seemed like it didn’t matter after all…

…

…

“Lucifer!” Pierce scolded him again.

 … but the Detective would be so heartbroken…

“Lucifer!”

… well, that’s free will for you. He really tried to alert her but she said she was happy and who was he to take her free will from her? Maybe if just this time he did nothing…

…

…

“LUCIFER!”

… or was doing nothing actually doing something and it could be corrupted and…

…

…

“Hey, are you alright?” Chloe asked. She had gently grabbed his wrist to catch his attention. Where she touched the skin was warm, in contrast to the rest of him. Only then he noticed that he was freezing.

But she had asked a question, right?

“What?” He asked.

“Dude, you really look like you need some time off. Did you sleep last night?” Ella asked, from the other side of the table.

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t slept for weeks now. He didn’t even know how long it has been. Mind you, he tried everything to stay awake when he thought that his Father was manipulating him on his sleep. As if! Now he saw how preposterous it was to think his Father would either give him a single thought or to worry about some meaningless human lives. But then… but then he discovered it was just another betrayal from  Maze (Maze! The demon he crafted himself so he could have someone to be loyal to him. But he was wrong, he may have made her wrong too. That explained why all he got from her end was betrayal after betrayal). They were trying to maintain him away from Chloe, he soon discovered. He was too late. In the week he stayed away, somehow, Chloe fell in love with that bastard. Lucifer got to her house only to find Chloe, Pierce and Trixie making dinner like a happy family. Well, they were a happy family now, he supposed, since Chloe and Pierce were engaged and all that…  Oh, was he supposed to do anything for Chloe? A bachelorette party maybe? He could come out from a cake. Stay out of range and they could even bake the cake with him inside! He could be the cake pan! A Lucifer-shaped cake!

“Lucifer?” Chloe was trying to get his attention. She looked worried, why was she worried? Didn’t she like cake?

“Lucifer, when was the last time you slept?”

“I can’t sleep.” He answered.

“What do you mean you can’t sleep?”

Well, he couldn’t. He had tried. But every time he closed his eyes he panicked. That was new, the devil being afraid of the dark. But it was what it was. He was terrified of suddenly having Mazikeen coming from the shadows with a knife and slicing his throat. Or maybe he would burst in flames, how did he know? He was defective, so it was possible. What if he slept forever, who would help Chloe when her marriage ended by the absence of a living husband? Or worse yet, who would protect her if her marriage indeed succeeded? He had tried to talk to Linda but she was so heartbroken about Amenadiel and Maze and…

…

… Oh, that looked like it was his fault too, somehow. Was there anything he could do to make amends? But he was defective. The Detective deserved a better escape plan…

…

…

Defective… Detective... He was sure he had a point somewhere…

“Lucifer?”

Oh, she had asked a question, but he couldn’t remember what that question was. For that matter, why was he in the precinct? He didn’t remember getting there.

“Why am I in the precinct?” He asked instead of answering.

“That’s exactly what I’m wondering.” Pierce murmured.

He noticed the look Chloe shared with Ella, but that was it.

“We have a case, remember? Dead guy on the beach?” Ella asked him.

“Yeah. One murder on the beach. Explain the picnic basket. But it wasn’t real.” He replayed.

Why were Chloe and Ella looking at him that way? Have him forgotten something?

“Oh, you’re talking about Maze? It wasn’t her.” He said, absentmindedly. Really, that was old news. He would actually have preferred if that was her crime instead of that entire San Bernardino stunt…

…

…

“Lucifer… What is today’s date?” Chloe asked.

“No dates for this week…” He replied. He had read somewhere that lack of sleep affected the libido. That seemed right. He should go a few days without sleeping to see if he still could…

…

… He could…

“I really think it is best for you to go home, Lucifer” Chloe told him. Her hand has moved to his shoulder.

Hang on, wasn’t he at home a moment ago? How did he get at the precinct?

“Ok.” He murmured. Only he didn’t remember what he was agreeing with anymore. Oh, maybe the world had indeed been created in the last Thursday and all of before has been a fake memory. Maybe the world has been created at this instant and he got defective memories, and that’s why he didn’t remember her question. Oh, that was unfair.

“Come on, I will give you a ride.” Chloe said, moving her hand around his arm to incentive him to stand up as well.

Oh, he would like that. But there was something on his mind about a supposed lack of libido and…

He tried to accomplish the impossible task of standing up, but it was impossible and thus he failed. Somewhere along the way his feet got tangled and he confused the order of his legs and the world was upside down and he was falling. Not once again, please don’t make me fall again.

Something in his head went wrong _wrong_ _wrong_ and the pain was a searing white until it was only blackness. Strange, he had thought that being afraid of the dark was a thing now.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I'm a needy writer who needs validation. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe Decker was the daughter of Penelope Decker. Big news. The thing was, she thought she was immune to have stranger days than those of her childhood. Actually, she thought she led a pretty normal life for a homicide detective who was also a single mother. At least that was the case before she met a Lucifer Morningstar. Let’s just say, for starters, that some weeks ago Lucifer was not sure if his father was manipulating him to be a divine savior and refused to sleep because of it. She still didn’t get it, but at this point in her life his eccentricities rolled off her like water in ducks-wing. Not so when he started saying her boyfriend was a biblical figure or other and then proclaiming that she deserved someone BETTER than virtually everyone alive and… Yeah. It wasn’t even a version of ‘if I won’t have you nobody will’ because he actually didn’t want to be her romantic partner. So she may had been a bit harsh with him, but then he recoiled and went back to his rant about his father making him save a family from a burning build and that was that.

Nonetheless… Holy crap, today was strange.

 Now thinking of it, it had started a couple of weeks ago, but she only noticed it at the beginning of this week. Monday came and there was no choir of ‘Detective!’ for her to roll her eyes to. Her day was quite silent without him pestering her and she, strangely enough, was able to finish her paperwork in an appropriate time. That night she was able to have a lovely date with her fiancé, strangely free of Lucifer’s inappropriate texts about life on Lux.

The next day was quite normal too. She received a new case (another body on the beach) and went to investigate without having to hear any complaints about sand in pricey Italian shoes. There was something about a murder on the beach in her mind, but then Pierce assured her he would help her to handle it and she let it go. She worked on that case for three days before Ella mentioned that the precinct got way to quiet without Lucifer and that she hoped that he got better soon.

“What do you mean? Is he sick?” Chloe asked, alarmed of not knowing it.

“Well, I went to Lux a couple of days ago and he was quite wrecked. I thought it was the flu. Isn’t it why he is not here?” Ella asked back.

And just like that Chloe noted that she hadn’t seen Lucifer in weeks. She was so used to having him pestering her every day that she never developed a habit of actively contacting him if she didn’t need him for a case. Distracted as she was with being engaged she actually… kind of… forgot about him.

Guilty out of her mind for actually forgetting her best friend, she called him. He answered in the third ring.

“Yes?”

No ‘Detective!’, no exuberant greeting, not even a traditional ‘hello’.

“Hey, Lucifer. I just noticed it’s been a while since I last saw you.”

“Has it?” He replied.

Ow, that hurt.

“Yeah. So, how are you doing? Why have you not been on the precinct lately?”

Lucifer took a while to answer.

“Do we have a case?” He asked. He did sound a little impatient.

“No… we don’t.”

“Ok then.”He replied, and then ended the call.

Chloe could just look at her phone. Ok, Lucifer was quite right that if they didn’t have a case she should not have expected him to be at the precinct. That was normal behavior for civilian consultants.

Actually, scratch that. Civilian consultants were not a normal thing. Period. The only one she knew was her partner and that was not normal behavior for him. Was he punishing her for her harsh words the other day? Was he avoiding her because of her engagement?

Those questions circled her mind all day. It was so damn distracting that the next day she decided to call Lucifer in the case. Good thing she did, because when the night came Chloe, Marcus, and Ella were conferencing over a myriad of clues trying to decide which ones were real and which ones were fake (oh how she hated framing).

She called and Lucifer came. Just like any partner would. She explained what he had to do and he promptly started to look at some documents, just like any partner should. And wasn’t normal behavior on Lucifer Morningstar strange as Hell?

Two minutes reading a document so far and he looked up from it with an inquisitive look on his eyes. Chloe prepared herself for some inappropriate joke or other distraction. It never came.

“What do you want me to do?” He asked.

She explained it again to him. Murder on the beach. People, plural, actively being framed by it. They were trying to find out what was left on the crime scene deliberately and what wasn’t. He nodded and started reading again from the beginning.

 Five minutes later he looked up again. Noticing his gaze, she looked straight at him.

“What is it, Lucifer?” She asked.

“What am I looking for?” He asked her.

Ok. Good question that. One she actually didn’t have a real answer for.

“Anything that looks too forced or too good to be true. Things that seem to fit but are a bit wrong.”

He nodded. Looked down and then up again.

“No, I meant what is this document?” He asked her, pointing at the book in his hand. It was the financial accounting of one of the suspects. She gave it to him because he once said he did Lux’ books so she supposed he would be good to find fraud if there was any. Maybe she was wrong?

“Here, let’s trade.” She said, passing him a stack of photographs instead.

He started to absent-mindedly look at them, but some time later she noticed that he was stuck in one photograph of the beach, of all things.

She called him, asked what has he seen on it. He didn’t answer.

“Lucifer! What have you seen?” Marcus asked, on the edge of his patience.

“Hum?” Lucifer looked up to Marcus and then down again, dismissing them.

After some seconds, he looked up and asked them what their case was about.

“Lucifer! Either you stay and pay attention or you go home!” Marcus scolded him.

Lucifer looked up from the photograph again, but this time only stared ahead.

At this point, Chloe was already freaked out. After that, they kept trying to get his attention and he would answer them, but his answers would make absolutely no sense. In the end, after Ella has asked him when last he had slept and he confessed to not sleeping, Chloe got it that he may have been awake for so long that he had lost his capability of forming short-term memories.

That was it. She would force him to his bed (and wouldn’t he love it on a normal day?) and make him get some rest. Only that when he tried to get up he slipped on something and crashed his head on a nearby desk. Chloe wasn’t fast or strong enough to hold him. By the time she kneeled at his side to see if he was alright, he was unconscious and there was a wound on his left eyebrow bleeding sluggishly on the precinct floor. She tried to wake him up, but he was out cold.

She panicked a little, Marcus complained a lot and in the end it was Ella who called an ambulance (head-wounds are serious. I think he even dented the desk) and in the end it had been five hours already that they were at the hospital and nobody would tell her what was wrong with her partner.

As far as she knew, they had made a lot of tests on him. From drug usage to exotic pathogens. He even got an MRI. So far, she had grasped from the hurried conversation of the doctor that they were worried he had a brain tumor or had some kind of stroke. That something was wrong with his brain (in other situation, certain that there was, she would find it funny. Now it was just terrifying). Nobody would give her any type of real answer, but after flashing her badge at a lot of people she was allowed to stay in his bedroom while they waited for some results. So far, he was still unconscious.

That’s when the door of the room opened and Candy Morningstar entered the room. Well… A more subdued version of Candy Morningstar, wearing a somber expression and neutral clothes with dark red stilettos.

“Hello, Detective!” Candy whispered, smiling a sad smile. “How is he doing?”

‘Not good’ was the first answer in Chloe’s tongue. He hasn’t been fine for a long time. But then… If Candy asked her why didn’t she help him, what kind of answer would she give the other woman?

“He… He fainted at the precinct. He has been unconscious since then.” Chloe replied, sticking to the facts. Facts were safe.

After a beat of silence and morbid curiosity, she asked:

“How did you know?”

“The hospital called me when he got admitted. It appears that he will have to stay for a while and as his next of kin I’m responsible for signing papers and other stuff. I came as soon as they called.”

“Have you driven from Vegas?” Chloe asked, finally noticing the small trolley at Candy’s side.

“Got a taxi. Think about unplanned expenses…” Candy replied and that was it.

Chloe spent the following hour berating herself. Lucifer’s ex-wife apparently has dropped everything in her life and got the first taxi she encountered and came to LA once she learned Lucifer may not be at his best. Chloe, his current partner on LAPD almost didn’t even notice he might be in need of help in the first place.

The doctor chose the exact moment she went out looking for some coffee to enter and explain Lucifer’s situation to Candy. Just as Chloe was opening her mouth to ask the other woman what they had found, Lucifer started to stir.

The detective wanted to go to him, but Candy was seated at his side and reached him first.

“Candy?” He asked, as soon as his eyes focused on her. “What you doin’ ere?”

“Didn’t you hear? You were declared incapable of taking care of yourself. And since the divorce isn’t complete yet it would appear that I’m the most qualified person to make decisions for you. Look at that, I own you now!” She said.

Lucifer took that with a small smile. Then he frowned. “What you doin’ ere?” Lucifer asked again. Chloe was instantly worried he was still incapable of forming short-term memories.

Candy appeared to have heard a different question, though.

“It looks like you need someone at your side.” She said.

Lucifer took that in silence. He blinked. His left eye took more time than the right to complete the movement.

“Where…” He started but got silent when Candy started to clad her fingers on his hair.

“Hospital. From what I heard, you’ve managed to get exhausted, starved, and dehydrated. And then collapsed and broke a desk with your head. They want to keep you here so you can get some rest and nutrients inside of you.”

“I can’t stay here I…”

“You don’t get to decide that.” Candy replied. Chloe approved. Surely Lucifer would be a kid about staying at the hospital, but he clearly needed it and…

“I will not submit to an incapable doctor will to…”

“Good for you that this decision is mine to make and not the doctors, then.” Candy said, gently moving her hand over the wound on his forehead. All that blood and all it took now to conceal that was a single band-aid. “Here’s the deal. You lay back and relax for a bit while I take care of the papers for you to get out, ok? I will just take a few minutes.”

Lucifer looked like he was going to protest and force his way out of the hospital, but stopped short when he saw Chloe and the foot of his bed.

“She will stay with you until I come back. Won’t you, detective?” Candy asked in a nauseating sweet tone.

“Sure.” Chloe replied.

Lucifer instantly calmed and relaxed against his poor excuses of pillows. Just as Candy was going out, Chloe grabbed her arm.

“You can’t discharge him from medical care! He needs help!”

“And he will get it. For now, just let him sleep.” Candy replied, looking at an already asleep Lucifer. She was gone out from the door.

She returned half an hour later to a fuming Chloe inside the room and a fuming doctor at her side.

“Mrs. Morningstar, he really needs to stay. At least for one more IV!” The doctor was furiously whispering.

Chloe was just preparing herself to side with the doctor when Candy seated at a Lucifer’s side and got a pocket book from her purse.

“As soon as my husband is awake, I will take him home. Until then, feel free to give him all the saline and meds you feel are necessary.”

And then it hit Chloe. Lucifer was suffering from exhaustion. He was too tired to leave the hospital. He needed to sleep. Once his body got the chance to do it naturally and for as long as it deemed necessary…

“I will stay with him, Detective. I promise to contact you when he wakes up.”

Chloe nodded and went home. It was so late it was actually early, but she really should get a couple hours of sleep before Dan left Trixie at her apartment in the real morning.

It was almost eight hours later when Candy sent her a text to let her know Lucifer has awakened and that she was moving him to his penthouse.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love guys.


	3. Chapter 3

Candy Fletcher grew up on a Catholic household. Strange, she knows. Although her father owned a club in Vegas, her grandmother was very religious. So much, in fact, that Candy knew that if all that was true she was doomed to Hell twice already. It was kind of that knowledge that made her keep her ways. If she was already doomed, why not to just get going? So when she needed money to save her club, she seduced, she deceived and she stole. Until the day she stole a ring from the Devil.

Well, no, she stole a ring from a customer who turned out to be named Lucifer. One customer capable to track her to her own home and get the stupid ring back. Things got… Well, quite weird after that. But she knew she needed money and that guy apparently had spades of it. If all he wanted from her was some company, hard-drinks, and ice-cream… She would happily provide. She got a marriage out of it. But most important, she got a friend out of it. A real one. A good one.

He solved all her problems with a snap of his elegant fingers. She was a goner after that. The man had beautiful fingers, who could blame her?

During her part of the deal, she got to know him, to talk to him. He was paranoid. He was lonely. Such a strange thing to think about someone so powerful and so popular… He was also in love.

“Why are you doing it to her?” She asked Lucifer the day after she met Detective Chloe Decker for the first time.

“She deserves better. She deserves a choice.” He replied.

Candy thought that it didn’t get much better than Lucifer Morningstar, but remained silent. That was not part of the deal. It would not be appreciated, either.

She went back home with divorce papers and a very expansive pair of rings. A very good deal, if you think that, in the beginning, she was trying to steal just one. The only problem? She was reluctant to leave him on his own. He was oddly fragile for someone so powerful.

So she never got him out of her mind, at least not completely. She would send him some texts, he would answer… Until the day she asked him about his evil mother and he answered that she was gone. Candy tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. She kept trying, but maybe he had changed his number. She stopped after that. It hurt to be left out without a warning, but what could she expect?

She should have more faith in him. Because when people tried to kill her, here he was, in purple shiny armor protecting her once again.

“I called. Why didn’t you answer?” She asked.

His face was the epitome of shame.

“I’m sorry. If I’ve known you were in danger I…”

“No. Before.” She assured him.

“Some shit happened.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

He was silent for a long time. Candy was a smart woman; she could read the answer in his eyes: he didn’t know he could have called her for help.

“I’ve lost my cell phone on the desert.” He replied.

It took a long conversation with Ella to learn that Lucifer has been kidnapped and left in the desert to die. It shouldn’t have taken that for her to understand how screwed he was.

Well, it did take seeing Lucifer get shot at six times for Candy to finally understand how screwed _she_ really was.

In the end, she married the Devil. Now she owned her life to the Devil and it was outside of a deal, so her part on it was to be still determined.

Holy shit. Hell was real.

Well, if she was already twice dammed before, it looked like a good thing that she knew the boss. They parted ways again with a peck on his cheek and a smile on her lips. Candy hoped that he knew he could count on her.

Time passed, and life went on. Now and then she would text him and would get some very strange answers.

‘ _Sorry, can’t talk. An urban legend has kidnapped me._ ’

Should she get worried?

‘ _I’m fine. My wings are itchy, but that’s it._ ’

The fuck he meant with wings? Did he have wings? Did he get scabies? Cooties?

‘ _Hey! I may be a bit high… Just cut my wings off again._ ’

Again?

‘ _Bloody feathery nuisances!_ ’

His brothers? His wings?

‘ _Amenadiel want’s to fix me. Preposterous._ ’

Wasn’t that Amenadiel’s motto since the beginning of time?

‘ _So, Linda and Amenadiel had broken up…_ ’

She couldn’t even comprehend a world in which Linda and Amenadiel were together in the first place.

‘ _How do you kill the equivalent of a celestial cockroach?_ ’

How would she know? Using an apocalyptic shoe? Were there celestial cockroaches multiplying somewhere? Because that was a thousand times creepier than Lucifer being the Devil, in her opinion.

‘ _Amenadiel is being a prat about fearing being punished by Dad. Do you have any friends who would be willing to sleep with him?_ ’

Hold on. Wasn’t Amenadiel planning a war against Heaven just a season ago? Now he was afraid of being punished for what, exactly?

‘ _Dad may be manipulating me. Talk to me? I need to stay awake._ ’

‘ _The Detective is engaged to the First Murderer._ ’

‘ _Have you ever being afraid of things that hide in the dark?_ ’

That is to say that when she got the call from the hospital she wasn’t surprised. She had been expecting it. She was still disappointed, though. Was it really too much to ask for the Devil to contact her before Hell has broken? Well, putting it like that…

Well, first things first. Now she had a rather miserable Devil to take care for. They had just arrived at his penthouse and it looked like he had the biggest party ever. What to do?

“Why don’t you go and get a shower?”

He just looked at her.

“You look like a homeless drunk magician. Go have a shower. Put on warm and comfortable clothes. It will help.”

He nodded then and turned to do just that. From over his shoulder, he asked her what was she doing there. Again.

“Is it so hard for you to grasp that I really I’m here because I care about you? That maybe I appreciate your company and I get uncomfortable being away when I think you could use an ally?”

“An ally?” He asked, back turned to her, staring ahead.

“Yeah. Team Lucifer all the way. No hidden agenda. No secrets. Just someone at your side.”

“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Yes. It is bloody hard for me to believe it.”

Candy was angry enough to throw a pillow on his head. She hit.

“You stop being dumb. Don’t you get it? I deceive good, innocent people and I get a ticket to Hell. Believe me, the last person ever I’d like to have lied to is the Devil.”

“Helping me will not get you to Heaven.” He said, still not looking at her.

“Oh no! Here go my retirement plans then. You’re the fucking Devil, you know I’m telling the truth.”

It took a moment for Candy to notice that Lucifer was chucking to himself.

“What?”

“Fucking Devil, it does have a ring to it.”

She didn’t answer. Lucifer sighed and marched to the bathroom.

Candy took the opportunity to clean up the penthouse a bit, order takeout and change the sheets on the bed.

Lucifer came out from the shower, properly dressed in flannel pants and a simple long sleeved cotton shirt. He ate what she put in front of him. He drank the water she served him. He even followed her when she pulled him to the direction of his bed. He didn’t lie, though.

“Yeah?”

“I really don’t want to sleep.”

“Ok. Let’s talk instead.”

They talked for a long time. Lucifer didn’t sleep, but it was a restful night, nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggestions are always welcome.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait. Also, sorry, but it's not even a real chapter. It's just a much necessary rant about the unfairness of life and a statement of Candy's position at this fic.
> 
> Even though, I hope it is appreciated.
> 
> (I've decided to include a second part in this chapter, cause I noticed there was a part of the rant that was very much necessary. Sorry not sorry.)

“Woa woa woa. Slow down a bit. So the new Lieutenant is Cain? Like, the son of Adam and Eve? Who is an immortal gangster that decided that his life’s goal is to die?” Candy asked, again.

Lucifer nodded. The motion dislodged the fingers on his scalp. Before he could complain, however, Candy adjusted her position and started to scratch the patch of hair behind his left ear.

“And he is going to marry Chloe? Because then maybe he can die?”

“Yes.” He replied. That fingers on hair thing… It was delightful. He would try very hard not to move from now on, afraid she would decide it was enough.

“And you are letting her fall in love with humanity’s first scum because she said she was happy and you think she deserves a choice? Even when you know that the best case scenario is Chloe being heartbroken when a) she discovers the truth about him or b) she doesn’t and he dies anyway?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” He started to answer. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get very far before Candy’s hand left his hair to pull his ear. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but the symbolism of the gesture wasn’t lost on him. The absence of her early caress was almost painful, though.

He must have recoiled because the next thing he felt was her hand gently soothing the ear she had just tried to damage. Well, that was nice too. Lucifer sighed and leaned into the caress.

“And Mazekeen, the demon you made, the demon who swore all her devotion to you, the demon that only exists to protect you, betrayed you. Again. What do you mean by again?”

Lucifer flinched. He didn’t want to talk about Maze. Fortunately, Candy didn’t give him time to answer. She just moved her hand to caress his neck, while still talking.

“And what for? Because the people she knows have problems and wants of their own? She is not the center of the universe. She should know that. For her, the center of the universe should be _you_.”

That gave Lucifer’s thoughts a pause. He too thought for a long time he was the center of the universe. Only to discover that nobody ever cared. Not his father. Not his mother. Not any of his siblings. Not really.

“And from what I could grasp, your very own therapist is too involved with herself and her own problems to help her client in a moment of crisis.”  

“It is not like…” He tried to interrupt, but Candy was on a roll.

“And then the goody-two-shoes Detective, owner of all things truthful and decent, just decide that you don’t get to interfere with her happiness this time, when all you really want is to protect her, at the cost of yourself, it seems. And all the while snarling that you care only for yourself and that she has done enough for delusional you, but doing everything but actually caring for you.”

“She doesn’t know about…”

“Oh, I think she knows enough. She knows you have a rough past. She knows you act out when upset. She knows how hard it is for you to get close to others, how hard it is to trust when all you’ve got on your life is rejection. She even thinks that you’ve assumed the identity of the Devil to deal with a traumatic past.  For now, she should know that you have a suicidal streak and that therapy isn’t really cutting it. She is also friends with Dr. Linda, so she should have grasped that the woman is too out of anything to really help you. At the very least, she should know that something really wrong is going on because come on, it’s enough to look at you to know that you are at the end of your rope. And she didn’t have the decency to look beyond her own problems to at least be sympathetic to you. Worse of all, if what you’ve told me about your brother’s death and the case of her father’s killer is accurate, it also seems that it’s a recurrent behavior.”

Lucifer knew Candy wasn’t mad at him. He knew it. But knowing she was upset, at all, and that he was related to the cause was too much to deal with.

The absence of her touch broke something inside of him.

He only noticed the tears when Candy leaned down to wipe them out from his cheeks with her thumbs.

“Hey. I’m just saying that you deserve better.”

“I don’t.” He replied. It was obvious that he didn’t deserve better. He didn’t even deserve what little attention he got from the Detective. And then he had gone and messed up and…

“Of course you do. Don’t you see? You’re the Morning Star. You were made for grandeur.”

“I was made wrong.” He sniffed.

“Lucifer, no…”

“Yes. I was made wrong. I was born sick. I’m wrong and was discarded for it. Don’t you see?”

“Of course I don’t. How could I? Since day one, you did nothing but being gentle to me. You’re the best man I know.”

Lucifer’s answer of ‘not being a man. Not being human’ was at the tip of his tongue. But he swallowed it.

“You deserve better. You deserve the universe. Come on, you hung the stars, powered up the sun. Every living being owes you their very life. And even not believing you’re you, Chloe does know you’ve saved her life at least one time too many. It’s unfair for her to forget that when it is convenient.”

Not knowing what to say to that, he just buried his head further into her stomach. Candy reacted by using one hand to caress his hair and the other to caress his upper back.

 

 

_____________________________________________

 

‘ _You deserve better_.’ She had said. Candy, who somehow believed he was indeed the Devil and found his company totally acceptable, also believed he deserved better. Well, at some point at the night she also attacked him with his very own pillow because apparently, he was a very dumb Devil.

“Did God trade your spine for wings? Or your brain for that matter?” She yelled while hitting his head over and over again.

Apparently, it would not do for him to decide that Chloe deserved to know the truth about him and then chicken out of it when he lost the means to do so. Also, according to her own words, Candy considered his excuse of ‘my wings aren’t who I am. I’m the Devil, not an angel’ utterly bullshit.

“So you decide that she can’t be with you because she doesn’t know the whole truth, but she can very well be with Cain not knowing even his real name? Don’t you see how farfetched that is?”

It took Lucifer swearing that he did try to alert Chloe about who Cain was for Candy to stop hitting him. Oh, so many names with C…

Well, Candy wasn’t particularly pleased with learning how he did try to alert Chloe, but it looked like she was more displeased with his obtuse rationale than with the morals behind it, for some reason.

“Even if you didn’t have proof of who you are, can’t you prove to her who he is? If you kill him and he resurrects, wouldn’t it make you being you more plausible? Also, don’t you have any proof he is the Sinnerman?”

And that was when she started to hit him again because apparently, it was unacceptable that he thought the Sinnerman was a better choice than him.

It took a good ten minutes of trying to fend off the pillow attack for Lucifer to realize that something in him was lighter than the feathers inside said pillow (and not only because Candy had such strong arms for her size). The thing was: Candy thought he was stupid. She was mad at him for something he did, but instead of being cruel or rejecting him she was… She was actually attacking him with something that had next to zero chance to really damage a human, least of all a celestial. She thought what he did was wrong. She was punishing him for it, but at the same time, she did think that he deserved better, all the while making it clear he could, and should, remedy the situation. She thought he did wrong. Not that he was wrong.

All that felt too much like absolution for him to ignore.

So he stopped resisting. Candy aimed the pillow right against his face, caught him right on the nose, and then stopped the attack altogether. Lucifer wasn’t certain if she was worried or just tired, or even if the significance of the gesture was lost if he wasn’t resisting.

“Just… If hurting yourself is what you need now. I get it. But I still wish you’d be fairer with yourself.” She said.

He closed his eyes and nodded. How long had it been since he was content being in his own mind?

“I don’t understand what you are trying to accomplish.” She continued saying.

“Neither do I, it seems.” He said.

“I just wish I knew how to help.” She murmured.

On impulse, he gathered her smaller form into his arms, pulling her against his chest.

“This comfy clothes thing… You were right, it does help.” After a pause, he added. “Talking helps too. How did I not notice it in therapy before?”

“Maybe Linda is missing a pillow.”

“Even pillow-talk with her has never…”

Lucifer was interrupted by another pillow against his face. He smiled.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a very short something so you know I'm alive and thinking about this fanfiction. It is not much but I hope you appreciate it. Also, I love seeing Lucifer in jeans and couldn't help myself (sorry not sorry).

The thing about having your heart, mind, and body broken at the same time is that there is no amount of band-aids that can hold you together if an external force is applied. And Candy had her heart broken enough times to know that even if comfy clothes, ice cream, and bourbon helped, it would take more than one night of shared conversation for Lucifer to be on his feet again. It would take time. It would take faith. It would take work. The first one, she knew Lucifer had in spades. But he was seriously lacking in the faith department and she wasn’t sure about the third.

Well, at least she could be at his side for now. She could wrap him in plastic bubble and hold him together with her very own arms for a while, so he had time to heal. It looked like a plan.

“The Detective sent me a text. She wants to come over.” Lucifer said from across the breakfast counter.

“Well, it took her long enough.” She replied. Looking at his crumbled expression, she sighed and amended. “Do you want her to come over?”

Lucifer was quiet for so long that she decided to intervene.

“You know it is okay if you don’t want to see her right now, right?”

He seemed startled by that.

“But…I still… I miss…”

“You can love someone, you can even miss someone, and not want to talk to that someone in some moments. It’s okay if you are not up to talking to her right now. I get it.”

“It is just…” He seemed to withdraw within himself for a while and she let him. After a bit, he continued. “She is everything I’ve ever had. And I lost her… So, seeing her… It’s like losing everything and being taunted by it?”

Candy approached him and placed a chaste kiss on his temple.

“You are not the first man to suffer heartbreak, you know? ”

Lucifer looked at her with a strange expression. She knew that was a bold move. Maybe he wasn’t the first being to suffer heartbreak, but maybe a heart wasn’t made to break so many times. Not even an immortal heart. Especially an immortal heart.

“So, what did you answer? Is she coming? Do you want me to go out?” She asked instead of delving into the previous subject.

“I didn’t answer. I… I don’t think I’d like her to come here. Maybe… I was thinking about going to the precinct today.”

“O-kay. And confronting her at the precinct is better because…”

“Because I can leave if I feel like it?” She could clearly hear the question mark at the end of his answer.

“What about Cain? Isn’t he going to be there?”

“The part of him that matters is everywhere,” Lucifer replied and she let it be.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

He kept looking at her with the same strange expression.

“It is also okay if you need to get away from me for a while. I can certainly entertain myself.” She said, amused.

He got up and turned to the direction of his bedroom. From over his shoulder, he said:

“The Covert’s keys are on the table.”

_____________________________________________

When you’re eons old, changing your ways can be quite challenging. Lucifer has always been vain and he didn’t think it would change in the next centuries. However, because of this, he was also quite used to change his wardrobe and style to follow the last fashion tendency, so if a change in style was in order, he was not opposed.

A change of mindset, on the other hand… Well, he didn’t lie, but he was good enough in the art of faking it until you make it. It’s not a lie if the thing is going to be true eventually, is it? Well, it was not forgoing his trademarks suits for a day would be a lie in any way, so… Candy has suggested he used comfy clothes. And being quite sincere, his suit felt less like armor and more like moorings. And he was cold. And… Oh bloody Hell, couldn’t he even choose his clothes without having to rationalize everything now?

Exasperate with himself, he grabbed a pair of dark jeans, a black turtleneck, and a pale jacket. The style reminded him of the Detective clothes, but at least he would feel more like he measured to her in this way – dressed the same, maybe they could meet in equal footing? She with her fiancé, he with his wife, both of them happy and…

But he wasn’t happy. And that was a lie he could not tell: he was pretty sure it would not be true for a very long time.

But the clothes were comfortable and he looked good in them so he let them be.

“You’re looking good.” Candy said when she saw him.

He nodded. He certainly felt like he should have said something back, maybe he should have complimented her? But right now he didn’t have any words to spare, so he remained silent.

Candy didn’t seem to mind. Actually, since she has arrived this time it didn’t look like she was expecting anything from him. She just… She just kind of was there.

He was not used to having someone who just was there for him.

“I’m ready.” He said.

She smiled.

That afternoon, he entered the precinct with Candy on his arm, smiling to himself because he was quite sure there was a joke somewhere about that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Candy totally knew what she was doing.

Lucifer has been out for more than 36 hours at this point and the case they were working on was still the same. And Io and behold, after more 8 hours, it was still the same case.

Now lucid, Lucifer was quite able to comb that dreaded financial book. Actually, that particular one he had finished many hours ago. The guy may have committed fraud and was clearly laundering money but, so far, nothing in that to link him to the current murder. Lucifer was now in his eighth book, doing tax calculations on his head as fast as his finger was tracing the column of numbers.

“Ugh! This is useless!” Ella said. “We have already gone through all this stuff and absolutely everything stands as out of place!”

“Well, that’s why we now have to go through this again so we can at least try to select what leads we are going to pursue... “ Chloe started to say. Ella waved her off.

“I know, I know! It just… It seems to go on forever and…I’m so hungry!” She complained.

Chloe had to agree. Maybe it was time for them to get a break? She looked around and even Marcus was massaging his own neck as if annoyed. Maybe if they started the other day with fresh eyes… But they may not have another day. Which started with one murdered victim had progressed to one of the suspects disappearing and then found dead twelve hours later. Another one had gone missing. They were running out of time.

That’s when she focused on Lucifer, who was totally focused on a column of numbers, going page after page like a maniac but clearly absorbing all the numbers he read. The man who had just got out of the hospital with a head injury that now was obscured only by a band-aid. The man who was deemed exhausted and dehydrated and was now working non-stop for eight hours while they, the LAPD finest, were complaining about boredom and hunger. Actually… That was not like him. Maybe she should say something? Send him home to rest and… Where the Hell was Candy? Wasn’t she supposed to be there to monitor him or…

And that was the exact moment that Candy Morningstar returned to the precinct.

“I come bearing gifts!” She said as soon as she approached them.

Said gifts had a delicious smell of bacon and cheese that had Chloe’s mouth salivating on the spot.

“Please tell me it is food!” Ella said.

“Better, it is pizza!” Candy announced while showing them a ginormous box.

It took the time for Chloe to understand what was happening for Ella to have the table cleaned for said pizza.

“Hey! I’m reading that.” Lucifer complained when the book he was reading was taken from under his nose.

“Pizza time, big guy,” Ella announced. Lucifer looked perplexed. It was kind of funny.

Then the pizza box was unceremoniously placed between then and paper kidnaps were being distributed and a few uniforms working the night turn were approaching them.

Chloe was already biting her slice of pizza with relish when she noticed two things. The first one was Marcus scraping off all the fillings of the pizza back on the box. The second thing was that Candy was gently stopping Lucifer from getting a slice of pizza.

“No no mister. After your stunt, you’re getting real nutrients into you.” Candy said while putting takeout boxes in front of him. Soon enough, she revealed a steak (probably rare and smelling heavenly) steamed vegetables and a small salad.

“But… I want pizza?” He said, sounding quite like a lost boy at that moment.

“You can have it after you eat all the carrots.” Candy said. She then took out a slice of pizza herself and made a show of eating it, clearly teasing him.

Lucifer sighed but started eating. Soon enough he was inhaling his food. He must have been starving and had not noticed it. Marcus, eating his topping-free pizza, was looking at Lucifer’s meal with a distinctly envious expression.

“So, why are you not eating the toppings?” Ella asked to what Marcus answered that he was on a fat-free diet.

Just then Chloe realized two things. Two very ugly truths that were better forever left in shadows. The first one was that when she accepted a slice of pizza she had condoned her lactose intolerant fiancé to a practically missed meal. What she should have done was to politely refuse the pizza and offer him to grab a bite elsewhere. Now everybody was eating and if Marcus wanted to leave to grab something he would have to answer questions that would invariably go around his intolerance that he was, for some reason, loath to admit. The second truth is that Candy was a very much better SO than she would ever be.

Lucifer had just finished eating his salad when he went for the box only to find it empty of pizza. Without being prompted, Candy extended the almost entire slice she was eating.

“But it is yours…”

“Actually, I bought it with your money, so it is yours.” She said with a wink. She then shoved the pizza right in Lucifer’s face, so he had no choice but to accept it.

Ella was happily munching on the cheese that Marcus had discarded. Chloe still had half a slice of pizza in her hand. Her fiancé was on the snacks machine complaining about the unfairness of free pizza and the total absence of anything worth his time in said machine.

“But won’t you get hungry?” Lucifer was asking with his mouth full of pizza.

“I’m not the one glued to a chair. You do know I can go out and procure more food, right? Also, I may have stolen your credit card…”

Chloe, having just finished eating, took that opportunity to join Marcus.

“Hey… I’m sorry for not realizing sooner… If you want to go out and grab a bite I could…”

“He did that on purpose!” Marcus seethed. “But I will be dammed if he wins!”

What? Who did what… What?

Marcus turned around and returned to the table, fuming all the way. Chloe was speechless for full then seconds when she tried to rationalize it. It has been a long day. They were all tired and frustrated. She tried not to make a big deal out of it.

But that outburst was nagging at her.

She used her current location as an excuse to buy a chocolate bar. She came back to the table, only to find all the case stuff returned to their original place. Lucifer was going back for the book when Candy stopped him.

“You’ve been on it for eight hours. A ten-minute break won’t kill you.” She said. She then proceeded to stand beside his chair and push his shoulders to the backseat. When he adjusted his position to sit straight, she moved her hands. One went first to his forehead and then went down to cover his eyes while gently pressing his head to her stomach. The other started to massage the muscles in his neck.

Just then Chloe noticed that her own neck was killing her. Automatically, she pressed her right hand at the tense muscles and looked at Marcus. He was looking at her with an expression that she imagined she only reflected: both were thinking that the other should offer a massage. Well, too bad that both were working on this damn case for hours and both deserved it too much to just offer it to one another.

“Of course it won’t kill me. Or any other immortals on this table. But there is a life at risk, you know?” Lucifer murmured. His voice was adorably sleepy.

“Uhum, tell me about it.” Candy said.

“This is a classified investigation…” Marcus started to protest.

“Dude, really, It is just a bunch of false leads all jumbled together and we don’t know what is related to the murder and what is not.”

“Why can’t they all be related?” Candy asked.

At that precise moment, Lucifer jolted at her touch as if waking up.

“Johnson’s has been laundering money.” He said.

There was a pregnant pause in the room. Chloe was instantly worried Lucifer was going back to that phase just before he had passed out and smashed his head.

“And?” Marcus asked, clearly testy.

 “But it was such a small quantity… I don’t get it why to laundry it.”

“Yeas, we all get it. You’re rich as fuck and…” Marcus was saying but Lucifer kept going, lost in his own mind.

“Maybe he was not laundering it for himself? Maybe he was buying someone?” He asked Candy, of all people.

“Like who?” She asked, gently passing her fingers through his hair.

“I remember seeing a photo of him…” Lucifer said and then started to scatter the photographs around the table.

Chloe was looking from the scene to Marcus, who was decidedly going purple in the face when Lucifer produced a photograph with an ‘AHA!’ to Candy’s face.

“McMillan? Isn’t he a jury at that new singer’s competition thing?” She asked.

“Our victims are both singers. Very talented I might add. Maybe it is correlated?” Lucifer asked Chloe.

The fuck?

“Lucifer, how do you know they were singers?” Chloe asked.

“I’ve heard them sing, obviously. They were both quite known in the night.”

“And you didn’t think it was relevant to mention that you knew the before because… Why didn’t you mention that before?”

“I know everybody that is anybody in this city. Citing it every time would get repetitive.” He replied. He actually looked quite offended.

Candy started to laugh, Marcus started to yell. Lucifer simply turned his head so his nose was pressed against Candy’s stomach. Chloe and Ella started to look into connections between the leads.

It turned out that all of theirs suspects made tests to participate on that singer competition thingy Candy had commented about. But since only one of them had passed the trial phase, it wasn’t an obvious connection to make.

When Chloe came back with the good news, Marcus had gone home and Lucifer was asleep against Candy’s stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all awesome!


End file.
